Home   Sport   Article

Membership boost for Tain Golf Club


By Will Clark

Easier access to your trusted, local news. Subscribe to a digital package and support local news publishing.



Click here to sign up to our free newsletters!

Tain Golf Club have reported its membership revenue has increased by £5000 this year despite the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

Tain Golf Club.
Tain Golf Club.

The good news comes after the club held its first competition of the season last Saturday when more than double the players entered the Rover Cup than in previous years.

Golf was allowed to return to action on May 29, more than two months after the lockdown restrictions were imposed.

Tain Golf Club professional Stuart Morrison says membership rose, knocking back the downturn of previous years.

“The number of members has gone up and we have done better than last year without people being able to play golf for 10 weeks,” he said.

“We have actually generated more members from the time that we haven’t been able to play.

“In the previous 10 years we were losing seven to 10 per cent of our membership annually which is reflected in golf in general. Last year we saw stabilisation and a small upturn on the year before and we have increased this year by £5000 on revenue.”

Morrison said the increase in membership was welcomed during a year where it is expected to take a hit from the number of visitors to the club.

“In visitors’ revenue we would usually take in £100,000 a year, but we might get only 20 to 30 per cent of that,” he said.

“We were thinking people would be looking for deals for memberships.

“But when people were coming back to play golf they were not arguing over prices.

“They were happy to pay what was required and that is positive news.”

Tain Golf Club held the Rover Cup on Saturday when 78 people played in the first competition of the season.

Morrison said the number of people taking part was overwhelming.

“The numbers were high and far more than we would ever expect to play in a club competition,” he said.

“We had 78 players, which compared to the average of the last two years is double the number of people who would usually play in the cup.

“We would average 35 to 40 people on a Saturday competition off the back tees.

“From the success aspect, it is off the charts. There is an element of it was the first competition and the weather has been decent. But we don’t often get that many people who want to play in a competitive aspect.”

Read more sport news by clicking here.


Do you want to respond to this article? If so, click here to submit your thoughts and they may be published in print.



This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to our use of cookies - Learn More